One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories Right Pleasaunte to Relate in all Goodly Companie by way of Joyance and Jollity is the full title of this first English translation of Les cent nouvelles nouvelles (The Hundred New Stories), a collection of short stories commissioned by the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, who was its dedicatee and who received them between 1456 and 1467. It was the first modern collection of stories in French literature, presenting a hundred stories by thirty-six storytellers, all historical members of the court of Philip the Good. The tales, of nuns and priests, lovers and courtesans, are typical of the age, reminiscent of – and sometimes plundered from – the Decameron of Boccaccio, the Confabulationes of Poggio Bracciolini, the Disciplina Clericalis of Pierre Alphonse, and the Chronicles of Georges Chastellain.

This English-language edition was commissioned and published by Charles Carrington, the best known and highly prolific Paris publisher of esoteric and erotic material at the time, and was translated by his friend Robert Bruce Douglas (1848–1927).

Léon Lebègue, at the height of his popularity, was an obvious candidate to illustrate this popular edition, and he produced illustrations for just over half of the tales. We can imagine Carrington explaining to Lebègue that the drawings should be risqué as appropriate, but tasteful enough not to embarrass potential purchasers.